"In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment
of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation
between church and State.' Reynolds v. United States, [ 98 U.S. 145, 164, ( 1879)]."

This language from Reynolds, a case involving the Free Exercise Clause
of the First Amendment rather than the Establishment Clause, quoted
from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association the
phrase "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole
American people which declared that their legislature should 'make
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.' thus building a wall of separation between church
and State." 8 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 113. (
H. Washington ed. 1861)
1

It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a
mistaken understanding of constitutional history, but unfortunately
the Establishment Clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly forty years. Thomas Jefferson
was of course in France at the time the constitutional amendments
known as the Bill of Rights were passed by Congress and ratified by

On June 4, 1985, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, 6-3, that an Alabama
statute authorizing a one-minute period of silence in all public schools "for meditation
or voluntary prayer" was unconstitutional. The Court held that the statute was a law
respecting an establishment of religion and thus violated the First Amendment. Wallace
v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 ( 1985). This chapter is taken from the dissenting opinion in the case
by
William H. Rehnquist, then associate justice and now chief justice — Eds.

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